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Looking forward to the Oscars

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I’m not competing with anyone but myself when it comes to checking out all the major category nominees for the Oscars before tomorrow night’s awards ceremony. I’m doing well this year, probably because the list is quite small: most of the films with acting and screenplay nominations are also Best Picture contenders. If I can get over my aversion to biopics that I wish were documentaries, I have a good chance of going into the ceremony with the confidence of a wimpy student who has done all the reading for the final exam.

The problem with preparing for the Oscars, as I do every year with varying degrees of success, is that it makes you cinematically tired. A likely enjoyable activity becomes homework. If I don’t manage to get a nominated film in before the ceremony, I’ll probably never see that film at all. It is associated with the grind. I love the Oscars, with all their splendor. I love large-scale spectatorship, the rare moments in modern life when many of us are simultaneously looking at a screen showing the same thing. But I also like it when they’re over and I can go back to a less purposeful consumption of culture.

And so it is that a recent piece by Mark Harris in the Opinion section of The Times bears the bleak headline “How bad can it get for Hollywood?‘ has paradoxically made me hopeful for post-Oscars 2024, and for the inevitable changes coming to the film industry.

Despite Barbenheimer, 2023 was a bad year for Hollywood. Harris cites the lingering effects of the pandemic shutdown, writer and actor strikes, the demise of the streaming business model, and the looming threat of AI. “If ‘Hollywood’ were a big summer movie,” he writes, “we would be right at the end of Act II, at the always darkest pre-dawn moment in the story, when all seems lost.

But Harris sees a silver lining: the strikes prevented major franchise films from being completed, and the public’s interest in superhero films that require deep knowledge of complex lore (more homework!) appears to have disappeared, if not eliminated, then at least have decreased. This pressure, he suggests, could lead to needed creativity, to projects with smaller budgets and less complicated post-production, to “stand-alone films that don’t require moviegoers to have a PhD.” in previous installments or expanded universes.” The same thing happened in the summer of 1989, Harris notes, when filmmaking was at an impasse and films like “Sex, Lies and Videotape,” “Do the Right Thing” and “The Little Mermaid” showed that there was an audience was that had to be cultivated and that money was made. are made from unexpected genres.

I’m excited for tomorrow night’s ceremony (The Times’ live coverage begins at 4:00 PM Eastern; the ceremony is at 7:00 PM Eastern on ABC) and I’m excited for what comes next. I already have my sights set on some of the more exciting fares coming soon: ‘Hundreds of beavers’, a low-budget black and white film without stars, but yes, hundreds of beavers, played by people. “Sasquatch sunset”, starring Jesse Eisenberg and Riley Keough in heavy prosthetics, with a script without words and lots of grunts. And it’s scheduled for release before Christmas, but Robert Eggers’ version of “Nosferatu” stars Willem Dafoe (who made “The Lighthouse” and “The Northman” with Eggers), Lily-Rose Depp and, of course, 2,000 live rats.

Music

🎸 “Deeper Well” (Friday): A perceptive and astute writer, country artist Kacey Musgraves is an expert at capturing transitions. Much of ‘Golden Hour’, her third album, beautifully captures what it feels like to fall in love (listen to “Butterflies”), and her most recent, “Star-Crossed,” distilled the grief and bargaining of falling out (as in “Good Wife”).

The first single from her upcoming album of the same name, “Deeper Well,” is a folksy meditation on self-love, her desire for growth, and her acceptance of change. She talks about quitting weed and eliminating unhelpful habits and people from her life. “I’ve gotten older now that I know / How to take care of myself / I’ve found a deeper well,” she sings. The album itself promises more restraint and introspection. Musgraves wrote it, she told The Cutwhile they ‘long for a return to the centre’.

Ramadan begins soon and sweet dates take pride of place at the iftar table, either served on their own or cooked in a range of fragrant dishes. Yvonne Maffei’s golden roast chicken with couscous, dates and buttered almonds It would be an intoxicating, aromatic way to break the fast, and a festive meal for any other occasion. In this North African dish, the herb-coated chicken is cooked in a pot of couscous, which absorbs the savory drippings, while toasted almonds add a buttery crunch. Make sure you look for the freshest dates you can find. Those with a lighter color and soft texture will have the best flavor.

What you get for $950,000: A cottage in Southwest Harbor, Maine; a two-bedroom condo in Miami Beach; or a four-bedroom bungalow in Seattle.

The hunt: A Brooklyn couple was looking for a distressed property that they could restore and rent to a low-income tenant. Which one did they choose? Play our game.

Games: A night with New York lesbian and bisexual backgammon competition.

Rebranding: Kylie Jenner has a more mature image – and new products to go with it. Read her interview with The Times.

Sacred Scrolls: Saints, a prayer app partly owned by Mark Wahlberg, has turned to TikTok to find his flock. The ads reach non-religious users.

Bread in Great Britain: London bakeries sell large, doughy New York-style bagels. Some traditionalists are standing at the London ‘beigel’.

If you often get sucked into the never-ending “doom scroll” of social media (or want to help a loved one who can’t shake TikTok), the experts at Wirecutter have some solutions. One tip: designate special areas in your home, such as your bedroom, where your phone is completely banned. If you get it out of sight, you can do a lot to keep it out of your mind. I often joke about wanting to throw my phone in the ocean, but going cold turkey and cutting off all communication is not rational. Our advice can help you ensure that your phone fits into your life, and not the other way around. – Annemarie Conte

Women’s college basketball: It’s conference championship weekend, your last chance to see many of the top teams before the NCAA Tournament begins. The three conferences below all have their finals on Sunday, airing on ESPN from 1-7 p.m.

  • In the SECUndefeated South Carolina has been cruising all season, but last year’s national champion LSU could provide them with a challenge.

  • And in the Pac 12Stanford, one of the sport’s powerhouses, is seeking a fourth straight No. 1 seed in the tournament.

If you’re just catching up on this season, The Athletic has done just that five storylines you need to know.

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